FireSmart BC categorizes broom in the "highest risk" group of fire hazard plants.
It's also an invasive species. That almost goes without saying. Anyone who's lived on Vancouver Island for any length of time has seen the massive spread of the stuff. It has flooded B.C. Hydro's transmission corridors, the sides of roadways and highways, mountainsides and farm fields.
Those who don't know any better will sometimes remark on how pretty the ubiquitous yellow is in the spring everywhere you look. But that's the problem, it's everywhere you look. And it seems to expand exponentially every year — hardly surprising since a single plant can produce up to 18,000 seeds. Those seeds can remain viable for up to 30 years.
Broom also seems to grow in just about any conditions, but especially good for it is any kind of cleared land.
So any time a developer cuts down existing trees and shrubbery on a lot, then doesn't build for whatever reason, a patch of broom springs up. Any time the government does highway construction, clearing the sides of a roadway, it will almost inevitably be filled with broom within a couple of years. Think those groomed slopes where they plant grass seed, as if that's going to out-compete the nearby broom plants, then never do anything to keep the broom at bay.
According to the Nature Conservancy of Canada, the roots of Scotch broom contain bacteria that change the soil, and it has a very high oil content. This oil content is what makes it such a fire hazard.
It crowds out other plants, native species that serve as food and habitat for birds and butterflies, not only because of its prolific seed count but because it grows year round thanks to its photosynthetic stems. It's also toxic to humans and animals.
The bad here heavily outweighs the pretty yellow flowers.
We should have tackled this invader many years ago before it got to this point. Looking around in the spring as the broom blooms (this is the time when you should cut it) it almost seems like it's too late for us to ever catch up.
But we can't just leave the problem to get worse — and it will continue to get worse.
There has been little or no appetite expressed by the province or B.C. Hydro to do anything about it in the transmission corridors and on the highway roadsides. They don't even bother to keep it from taking over where they've done recent construction. That is a big blow to any large-scale ability to make a dent.
But what we can do is keep it out of our own yards, off our own properties, and to join the Broombusters as they take on public lands and lobby government for more action.
